LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Shelf \% VT 

UNITED STATES »F AMERICA 






^1 



* 72. 



PROGRESS 



CHRISTIAN LIFE 



PROGRESS 



CHRISTIAN LIFE; 



SEQUEL 



FORMATION OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. » 



By henry ware, Jr., D.D. 



'I^ 




BOSTON: 
JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 

1847. 



i'<. 



« 



'i\ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1847, bf 
James Munroe and Compant, in the Clerk's Office of ihe 
District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



ADVERTISEMENT 



At the period when Mr. Ware's health 
began irrecoverably to fail, and just before 
he was obliged to give up all occupation, he 
was devoting his hours of leisure to the prep- 
aration of a sequel to his work on the For- 
mation of the Christian Character, which he 
designed to entitle " Progress of the Chris- 
tian Life." Several chapters only were fin- 
ished. They are too valuable to be lost, 
and are here published in the hope that they 
may be useful. The reader will form by 
them an idea of what the sequel would have 
been if its author had lived to finish it. 

C. R. 



i 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 



The following pages are designed as a 
sequel to the little work on the Formation 
of the Christian Character, and are supposed 
to be addressed to the same persons. When 
one has adopted the Christian faith as his 
rule of life, and begun in earnest his religious 
existence, it is still but the commencement 
of a career in which an indefinite progress is 
to be made, and which is to continue forever. 
As long as man is imperfect, there is room 
for improvement. As long as he is in the 
flesh, there is occasion for watchfulness and 
struggling against temptation. There is need 
that his principles become more and more 
fixed, his conscience more and more enlight- 



AUTHOR S PREFACE. 



ened and controlling, his passions more thor- 
oughly obedient to the law of righteousness, 
and his whole temper and demeanor more 
steadfastly conformed to the example of 
Christ. In a word, he is to grow in grace. 
Advancement is his duty, perfection his aim. 
It is with regard to this duty of religious 
progress that I propose to offer a few hints. 
There are some errors respecting it prevalent 
among believers, which I would first attempt 
to rectify ; and then I would explain its true 
nature and character, remove discourage- 
ments, and show the means and steps by 
which it should proceed, and how actual 
success is to be ascertained. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 1. pxos. 

Errors respecting the duty of religious prog- 
ress noticed and corrected — especially the 
error that the Christian life, having been 
begun, is accomplished, 11 

CHAPTER II. 

Errors noticed and corrected — especially the 
error that the Christian life is not to be taken 
up expressly — is not to have a marked com- 
mencement, 27 

CHAPTER III. 

Errors noticed and corrected — especially the 
error of those who fancy that the Christian 
life may be sustained without the use of 
means, 39 

CHAPTER IV. 
The young Christian put on his guard against 
the hinderance to progress which arises from 
disappointment respecting the enjoyment of 
a religious life, 53 



10 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. ,^oi!. 
Considerations designed to assist the Christian 
in the successful use of the means and 
methods of religious progress, 65 

CHAPTER VI. 
Maxims on which the expectation of religious 
progress is to be built, 78 



N. B. The following titles of additional chapters or 
sections are given in Mr. Ware's manuscript : — 

Hinderances. How Progress manifests itself, and is 
to he ascertained. Progress in Knowledge, in Self-gov- 
ernment, in Spirittudity of Temper, in Conscientioitsness, 
in Disinterestedness, in Pouter to resist Temptation. In 
what sense Perfection is to be expected, d^c. df-c. 



PROGRESS 



CHRISTIAN LIFE 



CHAPTER I. 

ERRORS RESPECTING THE DUTY OF RELIGIOUS 
PROGRESS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ES- 
PECIALLY THE ERROR THAT THE CHRIS- 
TIAN LIFE, HAVING BEEN BEGUN, IS AC- 
COMPLISHED. 

Nothing can be plainer than that the 
Christian character is a thing to be acquired 
and to be improved; yet it is evident that 
many do not so regard it. If we may judge 
from their conduct, the number is not small 
of those who esteem it something which 
belongs to them just as the body does, and 
to be kept alive and in health just like that, 



12 PROGRESS C i..^ 

by living along from day to day, as the cir- 
cumstances of each day may suggest, but 
not to be the subject of any special regard. 
But as to being every day better than the 
day before, as to being more humble and 
charitable this year than they were last, it 
does not enter their mind, it makes no part 
of their plan. They have been Christians, 
they say, as long as they can remember ; they 
always believed in the gospel, and meant to 
do their duty. But they do not know more 
about the history and foundation, the nature 
and purposes, of their religion, nor are they 
in any respect more devoted. Indeed, when 
one thinks seriously on the subject, it is a 
matter of amazement to him to observe how 
stationary good men are, and how quietly 
they content themselves with being so. 

It is not so in other matters. We look 
around us on the community, and we see it 
in a state of commotion and advancement. 
Its prosperity is a wonder to us, and that 
prosperity is progress. Every one is pushing 
forward. Every one is eager and panting for 
success. Our young men rise step by step ; 
they are discontented if they find it other- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 13 

wise. Those who began life with nothing 
are seen in a few years comfortably living 
with a family around them, — then entering 
a larger dwelling, supporting a more exten- 
sive establishment, and in various expenses 
evincing the advancement they have made. 
This is common. But meantime — even if 
they account themselves Christians, and re- 
member that they have an eternity as well 
as a family to provide for — they have not 
dreamed of exhibiting any proportionate ad- 
vancement of character ; it has not occurred 
to them that their piety should have grown 
with their estate; that their charities should 
have been as much greater than formerly as 
their income has become larger; that, as 
they have been rising in the world, they 
should have risen also toward heaven. In 
the eye of the world, they are better dressed 
and better lodged, and they move in a more 
fashionable and intellectual circle; but in 
the eye of God, in their preparation for 
heaven, they are just where they were. They 
have contrived to give the soul just food 
enough to keep it of the same stature — not 
considering that it was to grow as well as the 
2 



14 PROGRESS OF THE 

body — not considering, indeed, that this 
eager attention to worldly good, and rapid 
growth in earthly prosperity, have very prob- 
ably stunted the growth of their characters. 

How salutary might it prove to every one 
whom Providence has blessed with an in- 
crease of goods, if, at every enlargement of 
his style of living, he should devote one day 
to searching into his spiritual progress, and 
resolve never to erect a new house, or intro- 
duce a higher indulgence to his domestic 
economy, until he could honestly say, that 
he was as much improved in character as in 
fortune ! 

But, alas! this is far from being the way of 
the world. They are satisfied to seem to 
themselves no worse than they were ; — if 
they deeply examined themselves, they might 
discover that they are, in fact, much worse. 

Amid this universal and earnest struggle 
for the outside life, the inner life is neglected ; 
and very good men are entirely content to be 
no better, who could ill brook to be no 
richer. 

Certainly this indicates a false idea of the 
true object of life, and a very imperfect ac- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 15 

quaintance with that religion which they pro- 
fess to have taken for their guide. I do not 
treat the question in its reference to mere 
men of the world. On their principles they 
are right. With a worldly man, character is 
of very little consequence. If he be not dis- 
honest, so as to be in danger of the law, — 
if he keep a decent reputation for fairness 
and the social virtues, so as not to hinder his 
success by becoming obnoxious to others, — 
what more can he need ? His business is to 
make his fortune and enjoy himself more and 
more every year ; and this he can do perfectly 
well without being a better man. This, 
therefore, need be no part of his concern. 
But with those who profess to look beyond 
the world, to whom the favor of God is of 
some consequence, as well as the opinion of 
men, and who soberly believe that virtue is 
better than wealth, — with such as I am now 
addressing, — it should be the chief concern. 
Is it possible that they can have adopted 
Christ as their Master, and taken his religion 
as the great guide and blessing of their souls, 
knowing themselves to be immortal, and yet 
be satisfied to see their earthly condition pros- 



16 PROGRESS OF THE 

perous while there are no signs of their 
souls' prosperity? Surely the last must be 
their great anxiety and care, or they are 
strangely false to their principles. There is 
no incompatibility between the two ; both 
may advance together ; but to strive only for 
the earthly is treachery to their principles. 
Alas ! then, how many such traitors are 
there ! 

But there is another class. All do not, 
even in this prosperous community, succeed 
in their anxious efforts to advance themselves 
in the world. Many make no progress. 
They gain no wealth, they never enlarge their 
means of living and enjoyment, they live on 
as they began. Perhaps they are content 
with their lot. Many, it is well known, are 
perfectly so. They acquiesce in the allot- 
ment of Providence, and quietly sit down 
where God has appointed them. But many 
more have tried to rise, and in vain. Are 
they satisfied then ? Do they content them- 
selves? Do they make no effort further? 
Do they feel no regret, mortification, and 
longing? Surely not so. Waking and dream- 
ing, they are haunted by the restless desire 



CrmiSTIAN LIFE. 17 

and the unqucnched hope of reinstating their 
fortunes. And yet, though they know that 
their, souls are equally far from prosperity, 
and that they have made no improvement in 
religious knowledge and virtue, it does not 
make them uneasy ; they are perfectly will- 
ing it should be so. They are quite content 
to find themselves no better Christians ; but 
they cannot bear to find themselves no more 
wealthy. 

It was a beautiful wish of the disciple 
whom Jesus loved, when writing to a dear 
friend, " that he might be in health and pros- 
per even as his soul prospered.^^ I fear it 
would be thought a strange wish now, even 
amongst those who esteem themselves very 
good disciples. They would not understand 
how the prosperity of the soul is the first 
thing. Many, it is to be feared, do not even 
place it second. Business, money-getting, is 
first; their family, second; religion is post- 
poned to the third place, at least, and very 
little honored in that, if we may judge by its 
advancement in comparison with that of the 
other two. 

There are undoubtedly other classes to be 
2* 



t9 PROGRESS or THE 

found, besides those whom I have now named. 
They need not be described. They leave 
but a small number to be found scattered 
among us, here and there, as we look around, 
whose business, aim, object, is the growth of 
their character,, who live for the sake of the 
soul, and who evidently, markedly, become 
better men as they advance in life. We 
would not be cynical in our estimate, but 
none can look around on society. Christian 
society, — recollecting with what capacities 
for goodness men have been endowed, and 
what inducements to progress toward per- 
fection are always before them, — without a 
feeling of amazement, mortification, and 
alarm, at observing how few are growing, or 
striving to grow, in the virtues of the Chris- 
tian life. So rare are such instances, that 
they are looked on, and spoken of, as bright 
exceptions; and a measure of goodness which 
ought to be that of every man, nay, which all 
acknowledge to be still far short of what the 
Christian should be, is described, praised, 
and held forth to imitation as something ex- 
traordinary — as, indeed, beyond what men 
iiif general are expected to attain. " We 



CHRISTIAN LTFE. 



19 



are not to erpert to find otliers as good as 
he." 

This defective tone and condition of society 
is unquestionably a great hinderance to those 
who are young in religion. It presents to 
them, on their first entrance to a new princi- 
ple, instead of examples that stimulate to 
effort and excellence, and raise still higher 
their impressions of the purity and spirituality 
of Christian attainment, specimens of lag- 
ging, sluggish, moderate virtue, which coun- 
tenance them in the most indolent exertions 
for improvement. As they look forward with 
the glowing mind of youth and the first beat- 
ings of awakened faith, the Christian life 
looks to them not only all light and glorious, 
but of a strict and holy austerity, and a scru- 
pulous purity which has no part or lot with 
the ordinary follies of humanity — elevated 
above the world by a taste which has no 
pleasure in its perishing pursuits, and a habit 
of exalted contemplation which dwells amid 
things unseen and eternal. They begin the 
race, therefore, with feelings of high aspira- 
tion. They take their place among the dis- 
cipies with a romantic and earnest expecta- 



20 PROGRESS OF THE 

tion of finding in those privileged persons 
something, they kr>ovv not what, of a celes- 
tial temper and beauty : they expect to be 
incited, cheered, instructed, by the very con- 
tact, and to find in the atmosphere in which 
they dwell the radiance and perfume of 
heaven. And if they could find it so, they 
would keep alive their own ardor, they would 
persevere to realize their own exalted con- 
ceptions. But they find it otherwise. The 
image which they had conceived in their own 
minds of what the Christian man ought to be — 
an image whose features were all drawn from 
the life and teaching of the Great Master — 
is not at all realized in the world. Nobody 
acts up to it. Nobody seems to have it in 
mind. The common standard is wholly below 
it ; and these young beginners find them- 
selves alone, with an idea and purpose of a 
perfection which the more experienced smile 
upon as the extravagant dream of youth, which 
a few more days will show them to be imprac- 
ticable in such a world as this. Thus the 
actual state of religious feeling chills the 
early blossoms of their religious characters ; 
tliey find that much less thaa they had 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



21 



imagined is thought sufficient by the older 
and wiser disciples, who must know much 
better than themselves ; that it is by no means 
requisite to follow Christ so nearly, or wor- 
ship God so exclusively, as they had fancied ; 
they discover that, in fact, they have made as 
great attainments already as the world would 
bear ; to proceed further would be only to 
become singular : so they change their pur- 
pose, and remain where they are ; unwilling 
to be better than others; satisfied with a 
measure which seems to satisfy others, and 
glad to learn that the great work they had 
undertaken is so early completed. And thus 
each generation does its utmost to repress 
the aspiration of the next, and to keep down 
the standard of virtuous attainment. 

So powerful is the example of the society 
around us, and such the influence of prevail- 
ing notions to modify our own, that few have 
courage or perseverance to follow the inward 
suggestion which urges them to rise higher. 
So that a distinguished minister gave it as 
his earnest advice to a young friend, not to 
allow himself to be ordained as pastor of any 
church in which the standard of life was not 



22 PROGRESS OF THE 

very strict and high; because, as he urged^ 
all experience shows how almost impossible 
it is for a young minister to escape con- 
forming himself to the sentiment around him, 
and being shaped more or less by the popular 
mould. If it be thus to be apprehended in 
the case of one all whose temporal interests 
urge him, no less than his eternal, to rise to 
the MARK, how much more must it be so 
with ordinary men, who are less protected by 
the circumstances of their position, and the 
daily duties of their calling! 

It is, therefore, evidently, one of the first 
duties of the young Christian to settle it in 
his mind that he has only commenced a work 
which is to be going on as long as he shall 
exist. Every thing in the example and ex- 
perience of others around him proves how 
necessary this is, for it proves how easily he 
may be made to forget it. 

There are also some mistaken notions re- 
specting religion itself which may lead to the 
same error ; the idea, namely, which so readily 
finds a welcome in the mind which is glow- 
ing with the first happiness of its early faith, 
that its glow cannot fade away; that things 



I 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 23 

will always appear to the soul just as they do 
at that divine moment; that the new taste 
is fixed, and cannot be changed ; that it will 
take care of itself. Hazardous and unfounded 
as such a feeling is, it is yet very natural. It 
belongs to all strong emotion to have faith in 
its own perpetuity. The affections always 
are confident that they never shall change ; 
and we always fancy that the grief, or love, 
or indignation, which fills our bosoms now, 
can never fade from them. When, therefore, 
we are awake to the vivid consciousness of 
our spiritual relations, and are overwhelmed 
with those various and mingling emotions 
that take possession of the excited spirit, and 
blend there in all that is awful, tender, joyous, 
and serene — when we are confident that 
now, at last, we are tasting the highest gratifi- 
cation of which human nature is capable, 
that now, at last, we are in the state in 
which man ought to be, — a state in which 
things appear as they are, in their true rela- 
tions and proportions, and the common things 
of the world take rank among the insignifi- 
cant and uninteresting, — we cannot doubt 
that these, the truest, will be the lasting feel- 
ings ; we cannot conceive it possible that 



24 



PROGRESS OF THE 



any thing on earth should ever have charm 
enough to entice from this state ; that any of 
the things which we now know to be inferior 
should ever be able to withdraw us from what 
we now know to be supreme. This is the 
hearty, honest, deeply-seated conviction within 
us. This is the conviction which occasions 
the well-known confidence and presumption 
of young converts, which prompts to their 
proverbial forwardness — a confidence and 
forwardness often attributed to unworthy mo- 
tives, and spoken of to their discredit. It 
may not be creditable to them ; yet it argues 
nothing worse, perhaps, than self-ignorance. 
They do not know the evanescent character 
of the feelings, the deceitfulness of the heart ; 
therefore they give way to it; they trust 
themselves ; they spread all their sails to the 
wind, as if it would never change ; they fancy 
themselves established, and act warmly and 
boldly, as if established. But this glow is 
necessarily transient, like all vehement feel- 
ing ; and when it has passed away, they have 
no abiding principle of life to take its place 
and keep the work in progress. Other 
feelings rise up in the midst of the world ; 
the brightness of the spiritual light fades from 



I 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 25 

before the eye of the soul, and there is no 
advancement to a higher perfection. 

Let no one, therefore, from the strength 
and security of his first affections, allow him- 
self to rest, as if the work were done. It is 
but begun. Let him settle within himself, 
deeply and sternly, the persuasion that it is 
to be going on while life lasts. For want of 
this it is that the love of so many has waxed 
cold, and that so many who put their hand 
to the plough have turned back. If you 
would persevere, you must understand, at the 
outset, the necessity of perseverance. You 
must start with the conviction that you begin 
a perpetual progress. 

For which reason, instead of looking at 
the state of society, instead of conforming 
yourself to the model of those with whom 
you live, study into the nature and capacity 
of your soul, your destiny, and your respon- 
sibility ; imbue your mind with the spirit of 
your immortal faith, and the influence of 
the character of your holy Master ; and from 
the promptings of a soul thus filled and 
kindled, act out Christianity for yourself; — 
not as others do, nor as others expect you 
3 



26 PROGRESS OF THE 

to do, but as this state of mind impels you. 
There is no true and safe course but to be 
obedient to these suggestions of a mind 
which has faithfully studied for itself into the 
doctrine and temper of the divine life. These 
suggestions are to it as the instinct of its 
immortal nature — as unerring, as safe, as the 
instincts of the lower orders of beings. Man's 
bodily instincts are as nothing, for his bodily 
interests are of little moment, and in pursuing 
them he has no need of an infallible guide. 
But the interests of his undying soul are of 
infinite consequence : in his search for them 
he needs an infallible guide ; and that guide 
he has in the promptings of his own mind, 
whenever he has cultivated it with the deep 
study of truth and faith, and steeped it by 
faithful contemplation in the secrets of divine 
love and infinite purity, and brought it into 
intimate communion with the Holy Spirit of 
God. If you have truly acquainted yourself 
with your Master and his revelation, — if you 
have entered into their spirit with your whole 
soul, — then act yourself, freely, boldly, and 
you will not know what it is to stop short. 
This very action will be progress. 



/ 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



27 



CHAPTER II. 

ERRORS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ESPE- 
CIALLY THE ERROR THAT THE CHRISTIAN 
LIFE IS NOT TO BE TAKEN UP EXPRESSLY 
IS NOT TO HAVE A MARKED COM- 
MENCEMENT. 

Besides the causes of error which are 
hinted at in the preceding chapter, there are 
others still more worthy of consideration. 
Of these I do not know that there is any 
more common or more detrimental than that 
which is the subject of this chapter. It is 
an error which arises naturally from the cir- 
cumstances of birth and education in a Chris- 
tian land, and from the idea that under such 
circumstances the Christian character grows 
up of course, just as the social does, and per- 
haps as pnrt of the social. It differs from 
that before mentioned in this, that, while that 
suppose-.! the Christian character something 
to be firmed by a certain process in a certain 
time, —to be done by the job and finished 



28 PROGRESS OF THE 

at once, — this supposes that it is never any 
thing to be taken up as a distinct subject of 
attention, or to be made an express concern ; 
but is to be left to take care of itself, under 
those influences to which all are subjected, 
and beneath which it will grow up spontane- 
ously. This is a common error; it infects 
the great mass of nominal Christians; it 
deceives and paralyzes even conscientious 
men, and keeps them from all progress by 
persuading them that the soul will grow of 
itself, as the body does. 

This error is so widely connected with 
misapprehensions respecting the origin and 
nature of the religious life, that it cannot be 
fully developed without a wide discussion. 
But it is of less importance thoroughly to do 
this, than to exhibit the error itself It has 
no doubt been fostered by the manner in 
which the axiom has been received, that all 
safe progress is gradual, that whatever is 
violent and sudden is unnatural and unsafe 
— an axiom true in itself, when rightly un- 
derstood, but very falsely applied in the pres- 
ent instance. Is not the progress of the 
day gradual, it is asked, and the progress 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 29 

of the seasons imperceptible 1 Does not the 
seed germinate and spring forth without our 
being able to detect or trace it ; growing 
night and day, we know not how; first the 
blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in 
the ear? Are not all the beneficent oper- 
ations of Providence and nature thus? — 
never rapid, vehement, instantaneous, but 
always gentle, quiet, gradual? And, satis- 
fied with this analogy, we sit down to wait 
the advancement of our character, just as we 
wait the progress of the season ; as if we had 
only to sit and wait ; to do nothing to hasten 
or retard it ; as if its course was onward as 
inevitably as fate. We do not perceive that 
we advance ; but no matter : who sees the 
sun advance on the dial-plate ? We have no 
consciousness of being in motion ; but, then, 
who sees the motion of the planets, or the 
increase of the blade of corn? We are 
making no efforts : certainly not; for a growth, 
to be healthy, must not be forced. Who 
would have the sickly and short-lived prod- 
uce of the hotbed ? 

But even if we chose to follow strictly the 
analogy between the insensible universe and 
3* 



30 



PROGRESS OF THE 



the living moral soul, this mode of reasoning 
is unjustifiable. If we do not see the day 
come forward with our eyes, we perceive 
clearly, after an interval, that it has come 
forward; and though our keenest sight does 
not detect the growth of the plant, we yet do 
see that it has grown ; and we should be ex- 
tremely unhappy if the opening dawn should 
become stationary, or the grain and fruit 
should pause in the process of ripening. 
But those of whom I speak feel no uneasiness 
at the perception that their characters have 
become stationary; they are not troubled 
when, at the greatest intervals, they still find 
that they have gained nothing. All is made 
quiet in their conscience at once by the sov- 
ereign pacifier, '' O, we are not to expect 
great results : improvement must be gradual ; 
the more gradual, the more sure." 

Has not this lamentable result been en- 
couraged in many minds by the expression 
of a very eminent writer of great influence 1 
— " that our Christian congregations contain 
two clasvses : to the one must be preached 
conversion, to the other improvement " — an 
altogether just remark, which commends itself 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 31 

at once to every man's approbation. But 
how easily misapplied ! Every one, on hear- 
ing it, bethinks himself, of vv^hich class is he 1 
*' I do not need conversion ; I have been re- 
ligiously educated ; always attended church, 
always read my Bible, always accounted my- 
self a Christian; I only need improvement. 
My case, then, is safe ; I am on the right 
side, and of course it will be for my interest 
to improve ; in fact, considering the advan- 
tages amidst which I live, I cannot fail to 
improve : 'tis not in the nature of man to 
live under such excellent preaching and with 
such facilities for reading and worship, and 
yet not improve." Thus perfectly satisfied 
with his situation and with himself, he folds 
his arms and does nothing. The current 
floats him along, and he does not dream that 
it can be to any other than the true haven. 

If I should address such persons, I would 
ask them if they do not presume too much, 
when they thus take it for granted that they 
do not need conversion. Does it by any 
means follow, because they have been edu- 
cated under Christian institutions, that they 
have availed themselves of them, and become 



32 PROGRESS OF THE 

Christians? Because they have been taught 
to read the Bible from their childhood, does 
it follow that the spirit of that holy book has 
formed their characters? Certainly this can- 
not be pretended. One may be brought up 
in the very recesses of the sanctuary, and yet 
be as corrupt as an abandoned heathen ; may 
believe that Christianity is from heaven, as 
the Hindoo believes that his ancestral faith 
is divine, and be in heart addicted to all that 
is unchristian. History and observation tell 
of but too many who have contended for the 
faith, and yet who had checked no desire, 
controlled no passion, at its bidding. It is 
not, therefore, impossible that many decent 
men may have been brought up amongst us 
to honor Christianity, who yet are far from 
being imbued with its spirit ; that many may 
have a respect for its precepts and a jealous 
attachment to its forms, and yet be governed 
at heart by principles which it would disap- 
prove. Doubtless there are many such : they 
are willing to count themselves its friends ; 
they are proud to number themselves among 
its supporters ; and, being thus Christians 
by birth, claim the right to be esteemed 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 33 

Christians indeed. But in order to be Chris- 
tians indeed, they must be religious men; 
and religious men they are not : they need 
to be converted to the influence of the faith 
they honor ; from the worldliness which gov- 
erns them, to the personal experience of the 
power of the truth, which as yet is a dead 
letter to them. They think they need only 
to go on : alas ! they have not yet begun. 
They have the very first step to take. They 
have the commencement to make. 

Is it not to be feared that many are living 
and dying amongst us in this very condition ? 
Is there not a quieting and deceptive influence 
in much of what passes for religious senti- 
ment amongst us, producing the feeling that 
we have all begun — we have all entered the 
path of life — we have only to go on ? But it 
is not true that all have begun. How, then, 
can it be otherwise than dangerous to entreat 
all to go on ? How can they advance if they 
have not commenced ? There can be no 
true and satisfactory progress unless we are 
sure that we have made a beginning, and a 
right beginning. 

Now, the great error is, that men are con- 



34 PROGRESS OF THE 

tent without any proof that they have made 
a beginning. They are willing to assume 
this important and all-essential fact as a thing 
of course. 

They were born in a Christian land ; they 
believe Christianity divine; they are pretty 
good men ; they trust, through God's mercy, 
they shall be saved. But this does not prove 
that they have in any proper sense com- 
menced the Christian life. What are their 
ruling principles ? On what rest their affec- 
tions ? Where are their motives, desires, and 
to what are their self-sacrifices offered 1 Get 
an honest reply to these questions, and you 
find that the world si\\\ rules them. A faith 
in things spiritual, and a supreme surrender 
to God, they as yet know not. They have a 
beginning yet to make. 

I hold it to be clear that no man can have 
done so important a thing as to resolutely 
take up the Christian law for his guide, 
without a consciousness afterwards that he 
has at some time distinctly done so. It is a 
very momentous act in a man's life when he 
assumes the obligations and responsibilities 
of the word of Christ, and says, " For this 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 35 

Master I live and die." He must know that 
he has done it. It is not a thing to be taken 
for granted — to be supposed. The bear- 
ings of this faith on his daily life in a thou- 
sand ways ^ its applications to his temper, 
his thoughts, his will, his habits of living and 
speech — are too direct and palpable to leave 
any doubt on the subject. The struggle 
between this spirit of allegiance to conscience 
and faith, and the fleshly appetites and worldly 
principles; the trials, and falls, and recov- 
eries, and shame, and joy, and all the vari- 
ous tumults of mind and heart, which the 
Christian pilgrimage implies, are all too dis- 
tinct, too deeply felt, too strongly marked, 
to be forgotten, or to allow room for conjec- 
ture, supposition, or any testimony but the 
heart's own consciousness. Many, very many, 
have been so situated in early life, and have 
been so formed by influences exclusively of 
the world, that they can at no time come to 
a Christian life without most conspicuous 
and absolute change — a disruption of former 
ties, a more or less painful abandonment of 
former habits, a strange and entire alteration 
of the favorite and ruling desires. Educated 



36 PROGRESS OP THE 

as most persons are, it is impossible that they 
should otherwise arrive at the Christian life ; 
and this change is an era to be remembered. 
It leaves deep marks on the history. And 
as for others, who have been favored with a 
more propitious lot, and whose minds have 
received the sanctifying influence of truth 
from the cradle, drinking in divine knowl- 
edge with their daily discipline, and imbued 
with the temper of Heaven through the power 
of the society and teaching of their early 
guides, — they, too, cannot have confirmed 
their early impressions excepting through 
efforts and struggles ; they must evidently 
know ; it cannot be left to them to take for 
granted. They may have the most infallible 
proof that they have actually made a begin- 
ning. 

But as for the great class of those who 
can produce neither of these proofs, how can 
they proceed? They are grossly self-de- 
ceived. Their trust and hope are altogether 
without foundation. 

No wonder that they are content without 
progress. After assuming, without evidence, 
that they are Christians, it is a small thing to 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 37 

add the assumption that they move while they 
stand still. 

Here, therefore, I propose to my readers, 
that they institute a solemn and thorough 
self-examination. Let each inquire and know 
whether he is one of this very extensive class, 
who thus easily imagine themselves to be 
something when they are nothing. If he has 
never yet doubted on the subject, nor rigor- 
ously inquired, he has reason for apprehen- 
sion. Let him dwell no longer in uncer- 
tainty, or content himself with conjecture. 
Let him ascertain whether he has actually 
made a religious beginning. If not, let him 
waste no time in studying how to make ad-- 
vancement. He has an earlier and more im- 
portant work — to remove away all the heavy 
rubbish which, through his self-deception and 
long blindness, has been accumulating about 
him, and lay in earnest the foundation of a 
hearty faith, and a holy, heavenly character. 
If he is not sure that he has already begun 
the Christian life, let him begin now, to-day, 
with a prayerful determination, with a de- 
voted purpose, with a heartfelt self-consecra- 
tion to God, and Christ, and duty. Let him 
4 



tJO PROGRESS OF THE 

leave this great matter no longer in suspense, 
this most momentous question no longer open, 
but let him bring his real character and his 
hidden motives into the light — the clear 
light of truth — by taking devoutly and res- 
olutely the first grand step, by performing the 
initiatory act of intelligently, distinctly, and 
with a single heart, dedicating himself to 
the service of his heavenly Master. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 



CHAPTER III. 

ERRORS NOTICED AND CORRECTED ESPE- 
CIALLY THE ERROR OF THOSE WHO FANCY 
/ THAT THE CHRISTIAN LIFE MAY BE SUS- 
TAINED WITHOUT THE USE OF MEANS. 

I HAVE endeavored to expose the mistake 
of those who dream that the religious life 
has no beginning. I now turn to those who 
fancy that it may be sustained and supported 
without the use of means. 

In stating their error thus, there is absurd- 
ity on its very face, so great that it may be 
supposed impossible for any one to maintain 
such a position. And perhaps to the full 
extent none will venture to maintain it in 
termSj though we certainly hear language 
which very nearly approaches the statement 
I have made, and daily witness conduct which 
is consistent with no other principle than 
that which such a statement involves. In 
fact, it is the tendency of the speculations 
and the practice of the day to make light of 



40 PROGRESS OF THE 

forms, to undervalue modes of operation, to 
speak of times, persons, places, ceremonies, 
as unessential, material, instrumental, — as 
crutches for the lame, leading-strings for the 
weak, guides for babes, — quite necessary to 
those who are so far wedded to the body that 
it clogs and impedes their minds, but wholly 
unnecessary to the soul itself; in fact, as 
badges of an inferior condition, as marks of 
spiritual backwardness, as the remnants of 
an earthly dispensation, and relics of the 
infancy of our race, which are fast becom- 
ing unnecessary in this enlightened age, and 
which the truly enlightened had best dis- 
pense with at once. 

There is a good deal of loose thinking and 
talking of this sort. It is founded on a mis- 
apprehension of the real nature of the ad- 
vancement of man in the present world ; as 
if cultivation and religion were making an 
actual change, not in his condition and ad- 
vantages, but his very nature ; relieving him 
of his dependence on the body, the senses, 
and the material world. Whereas, evidently, 
he must retain still his connection with them, 
his relation to them, and must be affected by 



• CHRISTIAN LIFE. 41 

them in his desires, appetites, habits, enjoy- 
ments, character — must act through them, 
and be acted on by them ; and so long as 
this is so, it is perfectly impossible that he 
should be able to maintain a purely spiritual 
existence, or to advance his spiritual charac- 
ter, without aid from abroad. While this 
connection with the outward world perpet- 
ually operates on him to affect his temper 
and distract his affections, it is necessary to 
counteract it by agents and contrivances 
which also operate outwardly. While, every 
day, appetite must be indulged at stated hours, 
business done, and exciting thoughts, in- 
terests, and passions absorb his mind, he 
must every day have stated means of neutral- 
izing their engrossing and infecting power, 
or they will obtain the mastery. 

How it may be when the soul shall be sep- 
arated from its present connection with the 
body, we do not know. Perhaps then it may 
go on a course of holy progress without 
external aid, or stated help ; though the Scrip- 
tures give no representations which warrant 
us to decide peremptorily that it is so. Cer- 
iainly it is not so now ; and they who fancy 
4* 



42 PROGRliSS OF THE 

it to be so, are taking the sure method to 
dwarf their own stature and chill their devout 
aifections. 

There is, undoubtedly, a distinction to be 
made between religion and the means of reli- 
gion — a distinction, the want of attention to 
which has led to great abuses, and been the 
parent of fanaticism and superstition. Forms 
and ceremonies have been exaggerated into 
the essentials of faith; opinions have been 
made to take the place of character, and days 
and observances have usurped the respect 
which should have been paid to righteous- 
ness and true piety. In order to avoid this 
error of times past, it has become a favorite 
notion with many, that religion only, should 
have attention and honor — pure, unmixed, 
unaccompanied religion. They are to be- 
come religious ; that is the great end ; they 
are to form perfect characters. Religion does 
not consist in saying one's prayers, attending 
church, observing the Sabbath, sitting at the 
Lord's table, reading the Bible : these things 
are not religion. One may do all these, and 
yet not be religious — men have done all, 
scrupulously, and yet been reprobates. These 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 43 

are but the means ; and if one be but a reli- 
gious man at heart, it is of no consequence 
whether he scrupulously observe these means 
or not. Indeed, he had best avoid any ap- 
proach to a superstitious regard for them ; it 
would belittle him ; it is best to have a great 
<ieal of freedom. One should not be a slave 
to certain hours; he can pray at any time; 
a prayer is just as acceptable at the work- 
bench, and in the street^ as at the altar ; and 
every day ought to be a Sabbath; one day has 
no more real sacredness than another. There 
is great danger of mistaking the means for 
the end ; we will pursue the end only. 

Common as something like this may be in 
the thoughts of many and the practice of 
more, it is yet wholly indefensible as a mat- 
ter of reasoning, and utterly ruinous when 
applied to practice. Here and there a man 
may be found who can live on these princi- 
ples uninjured; but they are extraordinary 
men; the great majority would infdlibly be 
destroyed by them. 

They lead to a disregard of religious ser- 
vices, which will extend, in too many in- 
stances, to a disregard of religion itself, and will 



44 PROGRESS OF THE 

often inevitably cause the Christian character 
to fall into decay, because the props which 
are necessary to support it are removed. So 
serious an evil deserves to be carefully con- 
sidered. There can be little hope of general 
advancement or great attainment in religion, 
when such opinions are prevalent. 

Let it be considered, therefore, that al- 
though, abstractly and strictly speaking, there 
may be an essential distinction between an 
end to be gained and the means by which it 
is to be gained, for all practical purposes 
there is no difference whatever. If the result 
be desirable, and can be attained only through 
a certain process, that process is of precisely 
the same consequence as the result. If the 
affair be one of duty and obligation, the obli- 
gation to perform the process is as absolutely 
binding as the obligation to effect the result. 
If I desire to hold an eminent rank in society, 
if I wish to be a promoter of human good in 
an important profession, it is just as important 
that I should pass through the discipline of 
that preparatory education which fits for the 
profession, as it is that I should enter on that 
profession. My usefulness and eminence de- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 45 

pend equally upon both. It is not enough, 
in order to the arrival of a steamship at a 
distant city, that the crew be at their posts, 
the engineer at his wheel, and the machinery 
all in beautiful order ; the boiler must be 
filled and the fire kindled ; and he would be 
a stupid commander, who should slight these 
because they are only means — who should 
say that his object was to arrive at the city, 
and he was not to be busying himself about 
these little preliminaries to progress. Yet it 
would be hard to understand how there is any 
less stupidity in those who fancy themselves 
able to arrive at heaven, while they slight the 
appointed means of proceeding thither as 
wholly secondary affairs. I ask, " Are you a 
student of the Scriptures? Do you daily and 
statedly pray ? Are you fond of frequenting 
occasions of religious worship 1 " Your an- 
swer is, " O, no ! religion does not consist in 
these things. I am only careful about the 
great end ; that is all which I need to regard." 
That is to say, so long as you are resolved to 
arrive safely at the end of your journey, it is 
of no consequence whether the water, and 
the wood, and the fire, be applied to the 



46 PROGRESS OF THE 

boiler or not! "But," I add, " one would 
imagine that your own feelings would prompt 
you to join in these religious observances 
and acts — that your own religious state of 
mind and heart would lead you to take plea- 
sure in them." " Why, yes, sometimes^ now 
and then ; and then it is well enough to at- 
tend and use them. But unless one happens 
to be disposed to engage in them, it is not 
worth while to do so. It is only the great 
end which I am anxious about." " And 
thus," I reply, " caring only for the accom- 
plishment of your voyage, you have no rule 
but your inclinations to decide when you 
shall feed the fire which is to carry you on." 
One would be glad to ask of the great men 
who have blessed the world with their light 
and action in any department of usefulness — 
especially one would like to ask of the apos- 
tles and reformers — how this doctrine would 
have operated in their case, and where the 
world would have been if they had been be- 
guiled by it — if Paul, instead of his jour- 
neyings and toils that he might preach the 
gospel, and establish and organize churches, 
and so save men's souls and extend the king- 



CHRISTIAN LiiE. 47 

dom of Christ in the world, had thought within 
himself, " Preachings and worship, and the 
Christian community, are only the means of 
salvation ; they are but secondary things in 
comparison with salvation : salvation, salva- 
tion, that is the great, prime, all-absorbing 
consideration ; and why should I be wearing 
out my life on the mere means?" — or if 
Luther and the other men that have moved 
the world with their doctrine had sat silent 
on the happy suggestion that preaching is 
not religion — religion is the great thing to 
be regarded? And yet, where is the man 
who can show that it would have been more 
absurd in them thus to have forsaken the 
preaching of the gospel, and the gathering of 
assemblies, than it is in any private man to 
forsake the hearing of the word on the same 
pretence ? 

And yet there are men who practise and 
defend this unspeakable absurdity ! They 
think themselves good Christians, and yet 
waste the hours of the Sabbath, are slack in 
their attendance on public worship, almost 
strangers to the Bible, without worship in 
their families, and without stated prayer in 



48 PROGRESS OF THE 

their closets ; and, if you expostulate with 
them, very soberly reply, that these things do 
not constitute religion ; they care only for re- 
ligion itself. And thus there is not one of the 
means appointed for and essential to religious 
establishment and growth which is not put 
by on this plea. 

It is evident enough, I think, that these 
means, if not parts of religion, are yet essen- 
tial to it. But I go still farther. I ask if it 
be so unquestionable, as appears to be taken 
for granted, that they are not parts of religion. 
Is it so clear that the reading of the Scrip- 
tures, acts of devotion, and attendance on 
the ordinances, are not essentially, and in 
their own nature, parts of religion as well as 
means ? Let us look at this. What is reli- 
gion 1 Strictly speaking, it is something in- 
visible, intangible, immaterial — which has 
no shape, and is not cognizable by any hu- 
man sense. Practically speaking, it is a cer- 
tain character — that state of mind, heart, 
and character, which become the relation in 
which a man stands to God. Now, I ask, 
what is that state of mind, heart, or character, 
without the expression of it ? Is not the ex- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 40 

pression of it, properly speaking, a part of itt 
Can we say that there is character where 
there is no manifestation of it 1 If we were 
consulting philosophical exactness of terms 
perhaps this might be disputed; but so far as 
regards real life and the common judgment 
of men, it is doubtless correct. We know 
nothing of real benevolence of heart, if. in 
no way manifested — nothing of uprightness 
and strength of character — nothing of intel- 
lectual power — except so far as expressed; 
and this expression is always regarded as part 
of the character itself; it is the character 
acting. 

Now, religion is a certain state of mind^ 
heart, and character; but if there be no man^ 
ifestation of this state in action, neither the 
individual himself nor other men could be 
assured of its existence and reality. But what 
are the expressions, what the manifestations^ 
of religion 1 The most natural, perhaps the 
most spontaneous, the most indubitable, is 
prayer. It is the expression of the religious 
heart to its God. It is the language of the 
devout mind. It is the action of the pious 
spirit. I cannot conceive, therefore, that any 
5 



50 PROGRESS OP THE 

one should esteem prayer simply a means of 
religion. It is a part of religion. It is an 
inalienable concomitant. And it is repre- 
sented, throughout the Scriptures, more fre- 
quently as an essential act of religion, — 
inseparable from and inherent in a devout 
character, — than as a means of increasing 
the devotional temper, or of spiritual im- 
provement. 

The same is true concerning the Chris- 
tian ordinances. To express faith and new- 
ness of spirit by baptism, and to commune 
with the Savior at his table, are in them- 
selves religious actions. To read the Scrip- 
tures, and devoutly meditate on the truth of 
God, and worship in his house, and listen to 
the preaching of his word, are religious acts, 
expressions of a religious character, no less 
than means of increasing in Christian knowl- 
edge and holiness. 

It is, therefore, far from true that, in neg- 
lecting religious observances, we merely post- 
pone the means to the end. They constitute, 
in their very nature, parts of that which we 
seek to achieve. They are natural expres- 
sions, manifestations, of the religious charac- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 51 

ter ; and one can hardly be authorized in 
imagining himself to possess that character, 
if it do not thus display itself. 

If it be still said that one may make his 
selection from these means, and use those 
which best suit his own case and satisfy his 
own want, it may be replied, Undoubtedly 
he may find greater edification in some than 
in others, and to such he may with peculiar 
interest apply. But he can hardly think him- 
self at liberty to slight any, so long as all 
have been appointed by God, and are regarded 
as part of man's service to him ; so long, 
too, as each of them is only another mode of 
giving expression to that spirit which he pro- 
fesses to desire to cultivate, and which he 
ought to find pleasure in expressing. 

If these things be so, every man's duty be- 
comes plain, and he can live in neglect of it 
only at the hazard of a great absurdity, which 
casts his soul into fearful peril. 



52 PROGRESS OF THE 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE YOUNG CHRISTIAN PUT ON HIS GUARD 
AGAINST THE HINDERANCE TO PROGRESS 
WHICH ARISES FROM DISAPPOINTMENT RE- 
SPECTING THE ENJOYMENT OF A RELIGIOUS 
LIFE. 

Among the hinderances against which the 
young Christian may need to be put on his 
guard, we may mention, next, that arising 
from false expectations respecting the enjoy- 
ment of a religious life. The opening views 
of a religious existence are like those of 
youth, bright with vague anticipations of the 
future, full of gay dreams, romantic and vis- 
ionary expectations. It is the youth of the 
soul, excited, ardent, confident, and painting 
the future in colors too uniformly gorgeous to 
be true. Not that any extravagance of ex- 
pectation can exceed the actual happiness 
which the Christian realizes in his estab- 
lished faith. Young Christians do not, for 
they cannot, expect too much ; but they ex- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 55 

pect — as the Scripture says 'Uhey ask — 
amiss.'' They err as to the nature more than 
as to the degree of enjoyment. They look for 
it in excitement, in strong emotion, in ecstasy, 
in rapture. They expect to be forever in the 
same glowing frame of bliss in which they 
are now, while the subject is all new and their 
feelings all fresh. The scales have just fallen 
from their eyes, the light has broken in upon 
their souls for the first time, and the scene 
that bursts upon their view is that of Elysium. 
They have no idea that familiarity can ever 
render it less beautiful, or dull in any degree 
the emotion with which they gaze upon it. 
But it is a universal and inexorable law of 
nature, that familiarity tames the passionate- 
ness with which any object is regarded. The 
excitement of feeling goes down. The ex-^ 
altation and frenzy of the mind subside. 
The pleasure may continue, but the rapture 
ceases. 

He, therefore, who proceeds to cultivate 
his religious nature under the expectation 
that it is to yield him a perpetual, sensible 
joy, is sure to be disappointed. It is not the 
nature of the mind to be capable of perpet- 
5* 



54 PROGRESS OF THE 

ual, unintermitted joy. In all cases in which 
the mind is wrought up to a high pitch of 
excitement, one of two consequences always 
results — either it becomes weary, and the in- 
terest of the subject is worn out by the in- 
tenseness of the action, — and this often 
happens in religion, where a most passionate 
devotion for a season ends in coldness, indif- 
ference, and worldliness, — or else, the excite- 
ment being modified and controlled by reason 
and principle, the mind settles down into a 
quiet, steadfast, gentle, and equable condi- 
tion, without ecstasy, but fall of content. 
And this, too, is what we see in daily exam- 
ples of the judicious and confirmed believers. 
Many are made greatly unhappy, and fall 
into grievous despondency, for want of duly 
considering this. They find erelong that 
their frame of mind sinks. Not only have 
they no rapture, but they perceive with horror 
that occasionally even a lethargy of feeling 
comes over them, as if they had fairly ex- 
hausted the excitability of their mind. They 
read and pray with a calmness which fright- 
ens them — a calmness they in vain try to 
agitate ; and whereas they were shortly before 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 55 

lifted to the third heavens with delight, they 
now stand unmoved, as if the very pulse of 
celestial life had stopped. The contrast ap- 
pals them. They fancy themselves deserted 
of God and all goodness. They feel them- 
selves abandoned and lost, and are ready to 
sink in consternation and despair. They had 
imagined, in their hours of exalted musing, 
that the love of the world was subdued ; that 
the power of its fascination was gone ; that 
its follies and lusts, its pride and pleasures, 
having been seen once in their true light, 
could never have charms for them again ; and 
that the sinful feelings they had formerly ex- 
cited could not be excited by them again. 
But, as they again move about in the actual 
scenes of the world, they find it far other- 
wise. The desires and appetites which they 
supposed to be dead, were only sleeping, and 
they suddenly wake. The passions and sel- 
fishness which they supposed subdued spring 
up vigorously, and would break their chains, 
and clamor for indulgence, as before, and, 
perhaps, in some unguarded moment, seize 
on their gratification. All this astonishes 
and alarms them. They were not prepared 



S& PROGRESS OF THE 

for it. It is wholly unexpected. They find 
themselves deceived. They know not how to 
meet it. They are miserable. Their life is 
wholly a different one from that which they 
proposed to themselves — a life of watching, 
self-denial, and anxiety, when they had been 
looking for nothing but peace and joy. They 
are disheartened, and perhaps abandon the 
path which promised them pleasantness and 
peace, but has yielded them weariness and 
pain. 

It becomes important, therefore, that the 
beginner should understand the nature both 
of Christian duty and of Christian happiness, 
that he may count the cost before he begins, 
and not fail through false and unreasonable 
expectations. 

Let him consider, then, that Christian duty 
is conformity to a law, and Christian happi- 
ness the result of that conformity. This law 
governs the affections, as well as the conduct ; 
determines the whole state of mind and feel- 
ing, as well as of life; and it is only when 
mind and feeling are conformed to this law 
that the man is in the way of Christian duty, 
— only then, therefore, that he is to expect 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 57 

happiness. And what happiness? That which 
belongs to the consciousness of having done 
duty ; that which grows out of and appertains 
to the state of mind which is attained ; — 
and that will be, of course, satisfaction, con- 
tentment, rather than ecstasy. The con- 
sciousness of being right, the assurance of 
the favor of God, — these, being abiding and 
habitual impressions on the mind, are likely 
to produce a calm peace, rather than a tu- 
multuous delight. 

Then it is to be considered, further, that 
religion operates on the human mind upon 
similar principles with other subjects, and fol- 
lows the laws and constitution of human na- 
ture. If, then, in respect to the question be- 
fore us, the analogy of the other affections 
shows the same result, we ought to be satis- 
fied. And undoubtedly it is so. The reli- 
gious affections are kindred to all the affec- 
tions. That love which is the essence of 
religion is the same love which exhibits itself 
in the various relations of man, and is the 
source of the purest and strongest joys of 
earth, as it is to be of those of heaven. How 
intense and fervent the love of a mother for 



58 PROGRESS OF THE 

her child ! What sacrifices will she make 
for it, what toils endure, and how readily 
does her heart flutter and her eye overflow ! 
Yet there are times when that strong affec- 
tion seems dead in her bosom, and we have 
often heard her say that it seemed to her as 
if she had no feeling, as if she were an un- 
natural creature, from whom all natural 
affection had departed. Yet, meantime, un- 
excited as she is, she goes resolutely on, 
discharging her maternal duties, till some oc- 
casion calls forth again the floods of tender- 
ness. She did not blame herself — we did 
not blame her — for that habitual tranquillity 
of feeling, for that temporary coldness ; — 
far from it. The cares of a large family 
never could go on, if the parent were agitated 
always with the intense feeling toward all the 
children which is the real measure of her love 
for each ; and we know that she gives as gen- 
uine proof of her affection where the work 
she does for them takes her thoughts away 
from them, when she forgets them for a sea- 
son, because she is so busy for their good, as 
when she overwhelms them with caresses and 
tears. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 59 

So, too, the father of the household. He 
leaves them in the morning, is absorbed with 
the toilsome cares of his business, and may 
not be distinctly conscious of a thought or 
emotion going back to them during the day. 
Is it proved, then, that he does not love 
them? Time was, when the image of her 
who is now the mother of his children haunt- 
ed him like a dream, mingled with all his 
thoughts, could not be, would not be, ban- 
ished from his mind : it was like a light about 
him wherever he went, and a bliss in his 
thoughts however he was employed ; and thus 
his love was one perpetual living rapture. 
Because it is so no longer, does he therefore 
love her the less? Nay, he loves her the 
more, — with a sober, steadfast, habitual con- 
fidence and affection, which has lost its pas- 
sion, but has become an essential portion of 
his being, — intrudes on him less, but in its 
calmness and quietness blesses him more. It 
is only the idle dream of romance which ex- 
pects the rapture of the lover to be perpetu- 
ated in the sober certainty of waking bliss 
which makes the happiness of home. And 
so of all the affections. The religious affec- 



60 PROGRESS OF THE 

tions go by the same law. When newly 
awakened and fixed on the great realities of 
God and eternity, they engross, and agitate, 
and absorb the soul; there is no room for 
any other thought, affection, or care ; these 
fill and consume the whole being. But by- 
and-by the heart settles into a state of tran- 
quillity ; and the man, occupied in obedience 
and duty, is excited less, and walks with his 
faith as an old and familiar friend. 

Let it, then, be no discouragement to the 
religious aspirant, that familiarity with his 
new life has abstracted something from the 
keen relish it had at first. Let him learn to 
find an equal satisfaction in the moderate and 
unexciting life of tranquil duty, that he at 
first found in the strong emotions of the mind. 
Acceptance with God depends on the heart 
being right with him ; and as you do not 
judge of the rightness of your child's affec- 
tion toward yourself and the other children 
by its vehemence of expression, by its being 
easily called out in tears and vented in out- 
cries, but rather by its steady and unobtrusive 
watchfulness for your wishes, and carefulness 
not to offend, and fidelity, and kindness, — 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 61 

SO believe that the great Father judges of 
you, and approves you none the less because 
the strength of emotion with which you first 
came to him has subsided into an equable 
confidence and uniform obedience. 

And here I cannot refrain from saying a 
few words in relation to another source of 
discouragement, which often operates in con- 
nection with that, to the consideration of 
which this chapter is especially devoted. 

The Christian is very frequently disheart- 
ened, not only at finding less excitement and 
rapturous enjoyment in the religious life than 
he expected, but also at not discovering such 
obvious marks of progress in the advancing 
stages as at the commencement. But it is a 
very important truth for him who is going 
forward in the Christian life to remember, 
that the growth of character follows, in many 
respects, the analogy of all other growth. In 
its beginnings it is more perceptible ; its prog- 
ress in its first stages is more striking : an 
extraordinary difference is in a very short time 
noticed, after a man has positively changed 
from worldliness to religion. But the suc- 
ceeding steps become by-and-by less percep- 
6 



62 PROGRESS OF THE 

tible; and though actual, perhaps equal prog- 
ress may be made in a more advanced state 
of the Christian course, yet the work may 
seem to be almost stationary. An. illustration 
of this may be found in the diiFerent appear- 
ances of motion in the rising and the me- 
ridian sun ; the former seeming to advance 
with rapidity, the latter hardly to move. Or 
take, for comparison, a work of art, a paint- 
ing. The artist takes a blank and unmeaning 
canvass. He sketches the outlines of his 
beautiful subject. A very short time suffices 
to exhibit great progress. The whole form 
and features come rapidly into view. But, as 
he approaches towards the finishing of his 
work, he labors the more delicate parts — he 
retouches, refines, perfects ; but it all makes 
little show : in truth, there may be more and 
more careful study, and anxious toil, and the 
highest efibrts of his genius, and yet the 
amount of labor and thought, and the degree 
of improvement, be perceptible to none but 
a most observing and practised eye. So it is 
with the Christian character the nearer it 
approaches to perfection : there may be great 
watchfulness, laborious self-discipline, toil for 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 63 

advancement, and a perpetual addition of 
those delicate strokes, those hues and shades 
of spiritual beauty, by which perfection is at- 
tained ; but no change shows itself, mean- 
while, to the common observer; the Chris- 
tian seems to others precisely where he was a 
month ago, and he himself may be dissatisfied 
at not perceiving any obvious marks of growth 
corresponding with his arduous labors. 

Let the Christian, then, not be deceived. 
Let him be sure that he judges himself by a 
right standard. It is true that he ought not 
to be too easily satisfied of his improvement ; 
but neither ought he to be discouraged through 
an irrational regard and judgment of his 
moral condition. When the oak was just 
springing from the ground, and fearing its 
stem in the increase of its first tender season, 
its growth of but twelve inches above the 
soil, whereon nothing but decayed leaves was 
manifest before, appeared conspicuous and 
considerable ; but now that it has waved its 
branches in the sunshine and winds of three- 
score summers, and sheltered two genera- 
tions of men with its beneficent shadow, and 
nurtured innumerable tribes of living crea- 



64 PROGRESS OF THE 

tures in its kindly arms, it may add the same 
measure of increase in a year to each of its 
hundred gigantic limbs, with no perceptible 
enlargement ; its real growth has been a hun- 
dred-fold what it was when most conspicuous 
to men, but no one observes or appreciates it. 
So it is with the Christian character : the 
more advanced its stages, the nearer it attains 
to perfection, its actual improvement, though 
greater than in the beginning, may neverthe- 
less be less perceptible. 

In view of the discouragements alluded to 
in this chapter, and of all others that might 
be enumerated, I would say to him who has 
really entered on a religious life, " You have 
taken the only rational course, the only safe 
course, the only truly happy course : perse- 
vere unto the end ; run with patience the 
race that is set before you ; fight the good 
fight, keep the faith, lay hold on eternal life. 
Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness 
for the upright in heart." 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 6i3 



CHAPTER V. 

CONSIDERATIONS DESIGNED TO ASSIST THE 
CHRISTIAN IN THE SUCCESSFUL USE OF 
THE MEANS AND METHODS OF RELIGIOUS 
PROGRESS. 

In order to the successful use of the means 
of religious progress, so that they shall truly 
operate to a religious growth, it is essential 
so to employ them as to create an equal, 
healthy development of the character in all 
its parts, so as to avoid the inconsistency and 
distortion which are the consequence of too 
exclusive devotion to some, and the compara- 
tive neglect of others. A perfectly well pro- 
portioned religious character is rarely to be 
found ; but for that very reason it should be 
the more anxiously desired. 

Character is constituted of the state of 
the mind and affections, and the habits of 
life. These ought all to be in harmony with 
each other, — directed by the same princi- 
ples, exhibiting the same features, wearing 
6* 



66 



PROGRESS OF THE 



the same complexion. If they disagree, there 
is a painful discordance perceived ; some- 
thing is wrong ; there is neglect of duty, 
blame somewhere. 

Now, the means of cultivating and perfect- 
ing the right state of mind and affections are, 
primarily, meditation and prayer, and those 
mental exercises of contemplation, self-exam- 
ination and study, by which the soul is di- 
rectly wrought upon and raised to a spiritual 
fervor. Thus it approaches to God, cherishes 
holy and benevolent desires, and comes to 
love and enjoy the things that are unseen and 
eternal. And when, from the seasons of 
contemplation and thought, the man goes into 
the scenes of active life, he carries with him 
this propensity to goodness, these desires to 
do well. He goes with a mind imbued with 
the sentiment of devotion, and the spirit of 
dutifulness. 

Thus far, well. But the character is not 
yet complete : the habits of his active life 
make part of it. And what are they 1 Do 
they correspond with this internal frame? 
Are they in harmony with these principles 
and sentiments? 



CHRISTIAN LIFE, 67 

We are ready at first to ask, " How can they 
be otherwise 1 " But we are soon reminded 
that it is often even so. It is common to 
witness lamentable inconsistencies between 
the feelings and the conduct. Some men 
appear to live two lives. They seem to have 
two souls. In private thought and in familiar 
converse they are devout men. Their sen- 
sibilities are quick ; their emotions are strong ; 
their sense of God lively ; and they greatly 
enjoy their seasons of devotion and reading. 
But in the routine of life they are worldly, 
grasping, self-indulgent, devoted to gain, neg- 
lectful of trusts and duties, and far inferior 
to many who have no religious sensibility, 
who find little enjoyment in retirement and 
reflection, but who have accustomed them- 
selves to the most scrupulous fidelity in every 
passing hour of social life. 

It is to be with you, therefore, a matter 
of study and effort to carry the sentiment of 
the closet into action. The life of contem- 
plation must not contradict the life of action. 
It is but partially that character is formed 
which is formed only by thinking, musing, 
and purposing. It wants the completeness of 



68 PROGRESS OF THE 

active habits. It wants the test which is to 
be found only in life. It wants the principle 
of growth which can be found only in action. 
And this is what is particularly to be con- 
sidered in this connection — action is an 
essential and all-important means of religious 
gi^owth; so much so, that even the contem- 
plative graces, the virtues of the mind, true 
affection, exalted principle, benevolent dispo- 
sitions, — which we are ready to believe thrive 
best in solitude ; to cultivate which, multi- 
tudes have shut themselves out from the world, 
that they might have nothing to do but to 
meditate, read, and pray, — even these fail of 
their true perfection unless quickened and 
ripened by action. For consider a moment. 
When the mind is thus excited and glowing 
with divine truth and virtuous thoughts, is 
it not all so much impulse to do something % 
Does not the desire spring up spontaneously, 
prompting to act, — that is, to express itself? 
But there is no opportunity to act, and the 
impulse is denied. It is excited again, and 
again denied. What is the consequence? 
It is enfeebled. It becomes less and less 
strong. It fades and dies from the souL 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 69 

Generous impulses, not acted upon, perish; 
the soul loses its sensibility, becomes callous. 
It has long been a familiar accusation against 
a certain sort of sentimental reading, that it 
tends to consume and waste the sympathies, 
and paralyze the affections, by highly excit- 
ing them, but allows them not expression in 
action, awakening the impulse, but refusing 
to gratify it. It is equally the case with all 
religious affections. And it is easy to under- 
stand how they who trust to them as if sufR- 
cient, and take no pains to carry them out in 
act, may come to exhibit two distinct charac- 
ters — elevated thought and glowing feeling, 
but selfish indolence of life and cold inac- 
tivity. 

Consider, therefore, that action is an essen- 
tial means of religious growth. Follow out 
the highest impulses of your mind. Obey 
the suggestions of your conscience. Never 
deny the religious promptings of your feel- 
ings. Then you will establish the dominion 
of principle, the supremacy of conscience. 
Then all good feelings, having received their 
natural and intended gratification, will be 



70 PROGRESS OP THE 

encouraged and strengthened, because they 
have had their legitimate exercise. 

Remarks to the same purpose may be made 
respecting the relation which subsists be- 
tween principle and habit. Habit is a thing 
of tremendous power : it is sometimes om- 
nipotent in man ; and it is of the greatest 
consequence that its energies be as much as 
possible, and as easily as possible, secured 
on the side of virtue. It may be the greatest 
helper or the greatest hinderance to improve- 
ment. It was intended to be the former ; 
and yet to how many, through life, does it 
prove the latter ! In how many men does 
virtue make toilsome growth, because clogged, 
thwarted, depressed, by unfortunate habits ! 
— habits formed in early life, established in 
the flesh, rooted in the affections, woven into 
the daily routine of conduct, till they become 
a part of the very nature ; and the poor wretch 
whom they enthral is bound down to a mis- 
erable insignificance of character, and yet is 
wholly unaware of their deleterious predom- 
inance. They are habits, for example, of lux- 
urious living, of perpetual personal indul- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 71 

gence, of slothfulness, of mental inaction; 
they are around him like a heavy and dead- 
ening atmosphere, through which his spirit 
has to make its way upward, and by which its 
flight is perpetually retarded. It has always 
been so, and he does not know it ; or, if he 
knows it, how difficult to enforce the remedy ! 
But in most instances he has no conception 
of the true nature of the evil which hinders 
him ; is not, perhaps, even aware of his griev- 
ous want of alacrity and progress — like the 
perpetual invalid, who has borne about with 
him from time immemorial a seated disorder 
which enfeebles him, but has no violent symp- 
toms, and who still engages in all the gen- 
eral duties of life, without the vigor and de- 
light that other men know, but with all the 
vigor and delight that he ever knew, and 
therefore without any consciousness of the 
extent of his own deficiency ; and who never 
can be conscious how far he is below the vigor 
and spirits of other men, except by being de- 
livered from his ailment and made like other 
men. So is it with him whose moral power 
is palsied by the unpropitious habits I have 
referred to : he never can know the degree 



72 PROGRESS OF THE 

in which they are an injury to him, until, 
having thrown them off, he sees how rapidly 
he rises without them. 

There is the greatest reason, then, that one 
should strictly examine himself in this re- 
spect ; that he may not be depressed forever 
by circumstances in his modes of life, of 
whose injurious influence he is ignorant, and 
which he might counteract if he knew them. 

But could he counteract them? It will 
not do to answer, No; and yet the difficulty 
is in many cases so all but insuperable, that we 
are ready to understand in their literal sense 
the words of the prophet, and believe that the 
undertaking is as desperately hopeless as that 
of changing the leopard's spots, and the Ethi- 
opian's skin. To take the most familiar ex- 
ample : there is the drunkard. He contin- 
ues such against his own will, in spite of his 
own resolutions, in contradiction to his own 
interest, tears, professions, purposes, princi- 
ples. His bad habit is but the type of all 
bad habits ; a little more desperate, perhaps, 
because it has worked itself into every fibre 
of the body, and made its gratification to be 
clamored for by every organ and function, 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 73 

every muscle, sense, and nerve; but all bad 
habits, in their place, exercise the same insane 
dominion. Sloth — is not the man ashamed 
of it? does he not make vows against it? 
does he not mourn at the ruin and disgrace 
it entails upon him? and yet he is slothful 
still. Ill-temper — does not the passionate 
mother, whose bursts of anger lead her to ill- 
treat the child that she loves, blush at her own 
shame, and condemn herself with bitterness 
and tears? and yet to-morrow the passion 
is her master again. Procrastination — with 
what keen anguish, with what abiding sense 
of degradation, with what remorse for friends 
neglected, duties omitted, precious opportu- 
nities of usefulness passed by, and occasions 
of honor and improvement lost forever, — 
with what compunction and self-condemna- 
tion, with what torment of unintermitting 
self-dissatisfaction, — does that inexplicable 
habit pursue its poor deluded victim ! And 
yet remorse and shame, and a thousand in- 
jurious results, and the appeal even of sober 
principle, are vain. He still submits to his 
master, and will be wiser to-morrow. Other 
instances any one can add. And they sug- 
7 



74 PROGRESS OF THE 

gest the fearful question, which almost stag- 
gers our hope as we reply to it — whether, in 
sober truth, a confirmed ill habit be not in- 
curable, and whether virtue have any prospect 
of gaining in the conflict. 

The best answer is found in the appeal to 
opposite facts. The worst habits in the most 
desperate cases, and under the most unprom- 
ising circumstances, have been corrected. 
The history of the Christian religion is filled 
with examples. It has shown its divine power 
in these triumphs, and proved, by the won- 
derful trophies of its grace, in the amazing 
conversions from sin which it has wrought, 
that however desperate may seem to be the 
struggle between principle and habit, yet the 
good is the stronger, and must prevail in the 
end, whenever it is faithfully and persever- 
ingly supported. 

But how much faith and what long per- 
severance it demands ! 

From these extreme cases, then, the Chris- 
tian, who is seeking improvement, must take 
both a warning and encouragement — a warn- 
ing that he examine his condition, and be 
fully acquainted with every circumstance in 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 75 

his modes of life which threatens this ruinous 
ascendency over his principle ; and an en- 
couragement that, if he detect any which is 
interwoven with his whole being, so that to 
part with it is like parting with a right hand 
or right eye, he yet is able to do it, and to 
enjoy the happiness of deliverance. 

He is especially to learn the great duty of 
seeing to it, from the first, that all his per- 
sonal and social habits, his disposition of time, 
the order of his affairs, the customs of his 
daily life and business, be such as to facili- 
tate his virtuous purposes, — such as to make 
devotion and religion easy to him, — such as 
to make holy thoughts and benevolent actions 
always in place, never incongruous, never 
irksome, because evidently in the way of 
other affairs. By this method, he should give 
to goodness the fairest chance of obtaining 
a complete ascendency over him. Principle, 
finding all the habits of life and mind con- 
genial, would thrive, and strengthen, and 
assume the complete mastery. 

To make this yet the more sure, let him 
take pains directly to aid and encourage his 
principle ; not only by bringing it forward and 



76 PROGRESS OF THE 

making it active on great emergencies, but 
by allowing it, nay, calling on it, to exert 
itself constantly ; giving it small tasks ; cheer- 
ing it by the pleasure of small triumphs; and, 
in a word, by making even those lesser offices 
of duty and kindness, — which other men do 
of course, and without thinking, — by making 
even them matters of principle, — turning 
them into thoughtful acts of religious obedi- 
ence, doing them because they are consonant 
to faith, and are suitable to a spiritual and 
holy nature — whether he eats or drinks, or 
whatever he does, doing all to the glory of 
God, as to the Lord, and not to men. In this 
way, the full power of habit and all its noblest 
energies may be enlisted on the side of his 
improvement. Because, principle being often 
called into action, and being made the su- 
preme deciding authority, more frequently 
than any thing else, the habit of acting from 
principle will become stronger than any other 
habit; will overcome, suppress, exclude every 
hostile habit : the opposition between princi- 
ple and habit, which once so palsied the pur- 
pose and neutralized the efforts of virtue, will 
have ceased; and the forces once antago- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 77 

nistic having become united in the alliance 
of truth, having become in fact one, there can 
be no longer any serious impediment to the 
onward progress of the soul. Being made 
free from sin, ye will become servants to God, 
and have your fruit unto holiness. 



T^ 



78 PROGRESS OF THE 



CHAPTER VI. 

MAXIMS ON WHICH THE EXPECTATION OF RE- 
LIGIOUS PROGRESS IS TO BE BUILT. 

Let us suppose that the low views and the 
erroneous principles on which the Christian 
life is too frequently made to proceed are set 
aside. We next go on to state the maxims 
on which the expectation of Christian pro- 
gress must be built. 

And, first of all, it is evident that there 
must be a beginning. There is no such thing 
as setting out in the midst. There is a first 
step in every journey ; there is the com- 
mencement of life in every germ. The reli- 
gious life of the soul can form no exception : 
it must have a first step, a commencement. 
Define it as you please, — let it be the act 
of the human reason alone, — let it be the 
moral character as exhibited in daily life, — 
let it have no authority or guide but the indi- 
vidual judgment and will ; still there must be 
a beginning somewhere, for the simple reason 



X LITE. 7^ 

thai the indiTidaal who exercises the judg- 
ment and vill has a hegiimiiig ; so that no 
one, hj adopting a low idea of the nature of 
the relifioos life, can thereby escape the obii- 
zatioo to ascertain whether he hare started 
on the trae career, nor assume that he came 
into it as a matter of coarse when he came 
ato the world. For into what did he then 
come? Into those rerr habits of decent 
liring which, in his riew, are the Christian 
life ? Sarelr not. Those habits were ibrmed 
at a time when he had power to form the 
opposite habits ; when he had the opportnnitj 
to decide for himself which he woold adopt ; 
and when, fixxn some motive or other, he 
did adopt the better rather than the worse 
If he claims thit these should satisfy his con- 
science, then he most be able to show that he 
adopted them of good intention, that he formed 
the purpose to possess and maintain thb char- 
acter. Either he formed the purpose, or he 
did not form it : if be nerer formed the pur- 
pose, but is what he b br pure accident, then, 
of course, he will not pretend to anj more 
virfur, than if^ bj a similar accident, he had 
anj other character; and, on the 



80 



PROGRESS OF THE 



Other hand, if he formed the purpose and 
pursued it by resohite forethought and plan, 
then he made a beginning. Therefore, nothing 
can be more absurd than the idea so com- 
monly and unthinkingly held by men, that 
they are in the midst of their religious pro- 
gress, when they never formed a distinct in- 
tention of pursuing it, and cannot prove that 
they ever laid an express plan in relation to it. 
Now, if this be true in regard to that low 
idea of the Christian life just referred to, 
how much more is it true of that correct and 
elevated idea which rises beyond the decen- 
cies of external morals, to the spiritual purity 
of the affections, companionship with Christ, 
and a universal holiness. This absolute and 
express devotion to things invisible and eter- 
nal, this perpetual and supreme reference to 
the spiritual, is not a state of mind which 
grows up spontaneously, which starts to being 
of itself, out of the incumbrances and occu- 
pations of this visible state ; — it must be the 
result of effort, the effect of design. No man 
can have thus gained the mastery over the 
sensible present without having intended it 
and labored for it : he could not do this with- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 81 



out fixing a mark on that era of his life ; 
without being able to go back and say that 
then he made a beginning; not perhaps at 
such a day or hour, or even absolutely such 
a year ; but certainly that at such a period of 
life he took a decided stand, and, by some 
process of mind more or less protracted, came 
to the express understanding with himself 
that he was bound by religious obligations. 

This is the first element in the religious 
life — this settled purpose of soul, this dis- 
tinct, acknowledged, cherished intention and 
plan to live for heaven. He that cannot 
convict himself of having deliberately formed 
such a purpose, who is not conscious of 
having meditated and acted upon such a 
plan, lalks idly when he asserts that he is in 
the midst of a Christian course. He deceives 
himself He wants the first element of the 
religious life. 

Next to this purpose, religious progress 
demands effort. The purpose must not die 
in inaction ; it must not, as, alas ! is too fre- 
quently the case, waste itself in reverie and 
musing. That dreamy state of the mind, 
which loves to dwell in contemplation, — to 



82 PROGRESS OF THE 

sit with the eyes half closed and gaze on the 
visions of glory which the fancy brings before 
it, — to think of the admirable things that 
may be done, and the grand designs which it 
would be delightful to accomplish, — is an 
unprofitable state, and does little to advance 
the character. It is likely to enervate rather 
than to improve it. No purpose is of any 
value which does not ripen into action ; and 
the ever-present purpose of Christian pro- 
gress is nought, unless accompanied by ever- 
active effort. 

Inaction is the death of all virtue, the palsy 
of the character. It accounts satisfactorily 
for the backwardness and meanness of Chris- 
tian men in Christian attainments. One 
might almost fancy, from the sluggishness 
with which men hold their faith, that, in 
adopting the gospel as their hope and rule, 
they had simply placed themselves on board 
some convenient vessel sent for their deliver- 
ance, and now were quietly to float down the 
gentle stream to the great city of their rest; 
instead of which, all experience and all rev- 
elation teach them, that they are embarked 
on a wide and perilous ocean, where they 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 83 

must watch and toil, and where they can 
make no progress except they make effort. 

Our infatuation on this point is dreadful. 
Nothing else comes without labor and perse- 
verance. Learning, accomplishments, dis- 
tinction, wealth, — they are all earned ; and 
no man who desires them hesitates to pay 
for them the full price, enormous as it some- 
times is, at which alone they can be pos- 
sessed. But that greatest and highest attain- 
ment, a perfect human character, is to come 
of itself The calm peace of self-govern- 
ment, — the holy luxury of heavenly-mind- 
edness — the lofty and complacent dignity 
of spiritualized affections — the honor of being 
like God, and glory of entering with Jesus 
Christ into immortal purity and love, — this 
we expect to obtain by wishing : this vast 
acquisition, this unlimited and illimitable 
boon, we look at, we admire, we long for, we 
do not doubt we shall possess ; and yet we 
make for it nothing like the effort which we 
make to get bread for our children and or- 
naments to our houses. 

No wonder, then, that the Christian c£>m- 
munity improves so slowly. No wonder that 



84 



PROGRESS OP THE 



exemplary patterns of Christian attainment 
are so rare. No wonder that, instead of 
seeing all around us those men of the beati- 
tudes, those partakers of the divine nature, 
those illustrious imitators of God, of whom 
the New Testament speaks, and whom Christ 
meant to fashion as his peculiar people, we 
are compelled to mourn over inconsistency 
and frailty — compelled to hide a multitude of 
sins in our good men with the mantle of a 
wide charity — compelled to extenuate and 
apologize for our own and our brethren's 
faults, on the score of that human imperfec- 
tion, which it is our shame that we have not 
long ago surmounted and repressed. No 
wonder that, in this laxness of exertion toward 
Christian perfection, the world still waits to 
comprehend the meaning of that description 
which speaks of a "royal priesthood," "sons 
of God," "perfect men in Christ Jesus." 
For where are they ? Here and there one, 
just to satisfy us that the Word of God de- 
scribes no impossibility — just enough to cast 
unspeakable reproach and shame on the indo- 
lence of the backward multitude of believers, 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 85 

— backward, because they make no true 
effort to go forward. 

But it is not this listlessness and inaction 
alone, to which we are to look as the cause 
of this imperfect measure of Christian attain- 
ment amongst us ; — much is to be imputed 
also to a certain vagueness in respect to the 
nature and order of Christian progress. Men 
do not distinctly perceive what it is, nor how 
it should proceed. The same inaccurate and 
cloudy notions already adverted to, which per- 
suade them that they are in the successful 
prosecution of a work they have never ex- 
pressly begun, nor formed any express pur- 
pose of doing, lead them also to believe that 
it will be, by-and-by, successfully completed 
in some general way ; but they have not de- 
scribed to themselves in what way it is to be. 
They indistinctly see they must go forward ; 
but they have no clear, accurate idea of the 
path, and no idea whatever of the stages by 
which they are to proceed. In a word, their 
notion of the whole subject is general and 
confused, amounting to nothing more than 
that they are to be improving themselves and 
advancing toward heaven; that they are to 
8 



86 PROGRESS OF THE 

grow better as they grow older ; — but as to 
analyzing this idea, and reaching an actual 
understanding of the several points in regard 
to which they are to grow better, — this is 
foreign from their thought ; and no wonder 
that this vagueness of purpose keeps them 
stationary. 

The next point, therefore, to be considered 
is, that religious progress is to he made hy 
stages. It is not merely proceeding, but pro- 
ceeding from one point to another. It is not 
merely becoming better, but becoming better 
first in one respect and then in another. 

All progress is from stage to stage. In 
the processes of nature it is so ; — first the 
blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the 
ear ; — a continued growth, but arriving at 
and passing certain epochs or periods as it 
proceeds. So in the growth of the human 
frame, and of the human mind ; so in the 
advancement of society and knowledge. No 
science can be taught, no art can be learned, 
except in passing from step to step ; one por- 
tion must be acquired first as a preparation 
for another, and the third can be reached only 
through the full comprehension of the second. 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 87 

Why should religious knowledge and Chris- 
tian character be exceptions ? Why should 
we not expect in their pursuit also to find 
natural steps of advancement, which invite us 
to aim at one attainment in the first place, 
and to make that a stepping-stone for the 
next? And if our religious progress were 
divided out for us into portions, would not 
its accomplishment be more certain and more 
satisfactory 1 

It may not be easy — indeed, it is very 
diflScult — to state distinctly and with philo- 
sophical exactness the successive stages of 
the religious progress ; and for this reason, 
among others, that they cannot be precisely 
the same to all men. Even the author of 
that celebrated description of the Christian 
life which depicts the Pilgrim's Progress, 
though of a class of believers who have gone 
as far as any in making Christian experience 
of the same undeviating type in all individu- 
als — has yet found it necessary to allow great 
varieties in the several histories which he 
framed. Greater varieties still will be allowed 
by most persons who consider carefally the 
infinite diversities which exist in the natural 



88 PROGRESS OF THE 

tempers and dispositions of men, and the cir- 
cumstances of education, society, business, 
companions, forms of life, 6lc. in which men 
are placed. It is inevitable that, under this 
state of things, no minute account can be 
given of the stages of Christian progress 
which will precisely apply to all persons. 
We can state nothing more than a few general 
principles, of whose varying application every 
man must judge for himself 

Thus we may say, first, this culture of 
character which you have undertaken is a 
vast and complicated thing : it is not one 
thing, but many ; and it demands equal watch- 
fulness and effort in many directions, as to 
the thoughts, the passions, the words, the 
actions. It demands right affections toward 
all objects that concern you in this world, 
and in the invisible world ; the proper balance 
of the affections; the due adjustment of the 
habits with the principle ; the true combi- 
nation of freedom and restraint, of contem- 
plation with action, of firmuess with gentle- 
ness. It demands knowledge, self-restraint, 
watchfulness, and action, in so many direc- 
tions, on so many subjects, and so uniiiter- 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 89 

mittingly, that to undertake the whole at 
once, to assume the equal charge of all, and 
attempt their faithful regulation at the same 
moment, is a task that might well seem des- 
perate. The work must be divided and clas- 
sified ; the field must be separated into por- 
tions ; special attention must be first bestowed 
on this, and then on that, and the huge labor 
be facilitated by partition, the long journey 
accomplished by stages. 

Then, secondly, as respects the precise 
order in which the several objects shall be 
taken up and accomplished, it is clear that 
the first care should be to establish the do- 
minion of some great leading principle in 
the soul, some one master authority, to whose 
pervading influence all shall submit, and from 
whose absolute word there shall be no appeal. 
This will be to lay the foundation of the 
character steadfast and strong, and to further 
and facilitate the unity and compactness of 
the whole structure. And the Creator has 
provided for this in the very constitution he 
has framed, by making conscience the su- 
preme power, and ordaining that every faculty 
and disposition shall bow to its sway. To 
8» 



90 



PROGRESS OF THE 



assure to conscience its rightful sovereignty 
is, therefore, the first object ; to this one great 
end the attention should be directed and the 
chief effort made, because, until conscience 
sits monarch in the soul, all effort after per- 
manent moral advancement must be vain; 
and afterward none can be lost ; and in the 
mean time, while this is going on, much dis- 
cipline of the heart and the life will be un- 
consciously accomplished which otherwise 
might demand serious labor. Let the vigor 
of the soul, then, be concentrated to the 
accomplishment of this result, rather than 
dissipated and enfeebled in the attempt to 
perform several acts of inferior moment. 

Having made some progress in this great 
work, there is another distinct object which 
may in the same way command the special 
attention of the soul, and be made matter 
of studious and almost exclusive consider- 
ation — the predominant affection^ namely. 
This is of not inferior consequence to that 
just mentioned. That to which the heart is 
devoted decides the character ; and if the 
character is matter of solicitude, especially 
is it matter of solicitude to decide what shall 



CHRISTIAN LIFE. 91 

be mistress of the heart. Here the case is 
plain. Love is the first and second thing; 
love is the fulfilling of the law; he that 
dwells in love dwells in God. This is the 
principle that must sway the affections : when 
it does, the law will be fulfilled, and the soul 
will dwell with God, without any minute and 
painful toiling after the petty details of duty. 
Let this, then, be a distinct study, — the sep- 
arate and express aim, — until the character- 
istics of divine love are impressed deeply on 
the heart, and all meaner affections recognize 
and bow to its dominion. 

Another distinct object must be, to gain an 
ever-wakeful consciousness of the divine pres- 
ence. The good child must learn to feel the 
Father's presence, must never lose sight of 
his eye ; and it is essential to spiritual growth 
that the spirit human should be always aware 
of its contact with the Spirit divine. This is 
to be learned. This must become a habit. 
And it can only be by making it a subject of 
distinct study and effort; so that the soul, 
which the officious senses would restrict to 
this visible scen« of things, may be able to 



92 PROGRESS OP THE 

Struggle away from them, and look alway at 
the things which are unseen and eternal. 

Let these suffice for specimens of what is 
intended by stages in the religious progress. 
I trust I have said enough to exhibit my 
meaning clearly. The doctrine I would in- 
culcate is, that, instead of proposing to our- 
selves, in general terms, the vast and vague 
purpose of becoming religious, we should 
parcel out our duty into its natural depart- 
ments, and make each the object of separate 
discipline, until we have become in some mea- 
sure adepts in it, and then attend in the same 
way to another. Of course, this method can- 
not be pursued to the letter; no one can 
exclusively cultivate his conscience, and have 
no care of his affections; nor cherish the 
thought of God, and yet neglect his con- 
science. On the contrary, attention to either 
of these objects greatly tends to fix' attention 
on the other two; but unquestionably the 
greatest proficiency in regard to each and to 
all would be achieved by an effort specially 
directed to one at a time. 

This general principle might be illustrated 



CHKISTIAN LIFE. 93 

and explained to a much greater extent ; but 
enough has been said to render it intelligi- 
ble, and show its application. One thing at 
a time, though a rule impossible to be literally- 
adhered to, is yet, as far as it may be observed, 
as wise in the progress of the religious char- 
acter as in any other important affair. 



END. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A VVOHLO LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



;^V- y^ ^^ v^v 



X^ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 725 242 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS # 



illliiiiiiiiitiiiiiiiiiiu 
029 789 423 7 



